St. Patrick's Day "Lucky Sign" -Copy Crafting

I saw this Lucky sign:  http://lindseyscraftlist.blogspot.com/2010/02/lucky-wood-board.html I wanted to make one of my own.

My husband is a wood worker.  In his home remodeling projects, I get lots of scrap wood.  GraciAnn and I found a piece we liked, and she went to work sanding it. This particular piece was oak.

We got green paint.  The color was "XMas Green".

We painted the entire board.

On my Silhouette, I cut the word Lucky and some stripey Shamrocks. I used a distressing ink pad and distressed the letters and the shamrock.

I put Mod Podge on the entire board.

I placed the letters and shamrock on the board and rubbed it down. I let it dry for about thirty minutes.

I mod podged over the top of the entire thing.

It dried.  I added embellishments-ribbons and buttons. I feel Lucky to have such a wonderful sign!

Last Year's Valentine's Day Post is Full of Great Ideas

It's Valentine's Day! I hope you all are having a wonderful one.  What does this mean to us?  Well, we're almost done with pink, red, and hearts and we'll be moving on to rainbows, leprechauns, and pots of gold.

I LOVE traditions.  I have many.  I really don't have any Valentine's Day traditions though.  Any suggestions?

I definitely try to spend the day letting others know how grateful I am for them. So, let me start with our followers.  I am so grateful for you.  You give our crafting addictions a purpose.

Speaking of crafting and cooking... I have a few more Valentine's Day things to share with you before we move on to the next holiday.

Do you remember the birthday door mat tutorial I did? http://www.oursevendwarfs.com/2011/01/happy-birthday-welcome-mat-tutorial.html Here's my Valentine's Day version.  We're conversation hearts.  I used regular acrylic paint on the mat and fabric paint to paint on our names.  I just free handed the hearts. Super easy and even cheaper.  This is one of those thirty minute crafts.  I LOVE quick crafting!

My friend Amy and I saw a great wreath on Oopsey Daisy http://oopsey-daisy.blogspot.com/2011/02/3-dimensional-heart-wreath.html.  We were inspired.  As always, when we copy craft, we take their thing and do our own thing to it.  So, instead of copying the entire wreath with the hearts, we did a partial cover. I'll be honest, there were three reasons we did this. First, we bought two stores out of hearts.  Secondly, that would have taken a lot more time.  Finally, we really liked the look of the satin ribbon on the wreath so we wanted ot show some of it.  This is my wreath above.

This is Amy's wreath.  Amy claims to be noncrafty.  She's a crafty chick in denial.  Her wreath is gorgeous.  Also, if I'm going to be completely honest.  She made all of my wreath too.  The only thing I did was arrange the hearts, hot glue them on, and get a huge blister to prove I used a hot glue gun! Thanks, Amy!

Here's my entry way with the wreath and doormat.

After crafting, I did some cooking. I made these amazing meringue cookies.  I got the recipe from http://www.thestoriesofa2z.com/2010/02/meringue-ice-cream-cone-valentines.html she made them into adorable ice cream cones.  I decided not to do that.  First, my kids don't eat the cones. Secondly, my kids don't eat cake, just icing, and thirdly, meringue cookies, even with M & Ms are pretty low fat.  I'm thinking that's a great dessert to make.  These are delicious.  I used 1T of freshly squeezed lemon juice.  The chocolate and lemon combination are surprisingly amazing.  I will make this recipe again and again.  YUM!

I also made these Martha Stewart cookies.  http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/chocolate-cookie-cutouts-love-bug-cookies The first time I made these cookies was for my daughter's first birthday party.  It was ladybug themed and I made the cute ladybug cookies.  Well, this cookie base is simply delicious... cocoa and cinnamon...so good.  So, I've made them a couple of times since.  These aren't decorated yet but pretty soon they'll have Royal Icing and a varitey of sprinkles. 

...GraciAnn decorated these!  Cute, huh?

Then there's the homemade card I made my husband.  I used red felt to make the rosettes. http://www.oursevendwarfs.com/2011/02/valentines-day-celebrated-with-burlap.html Here's a tutorial for the rosettes I did on an earlier project.  It's simple, sweet, and special. I like it much better than any of the cards I looked at to buy.

Here's wishing you a lovely day on this Valentine's Day!

I Bought the Greatest Felt Hearts and I Created....

Here's another great Valentine's Day idea. feltjar.etsy.com has been a great supporter of our blog. Visit her to see if you find anything you can't live without!

One of my Facebook friends, posted this great etsy store as her status: feltjar.etsy.com.  She showed these adorable little hearts she bought. Well, who was I to be left out?  I saw them and immediately knew what I could do with them.

This is how they arrived, all bundled with love.

I opened them and here the 20 tiny beauties were!

I gathered all my supplies.  My vase, a tree branch, floral foam, a needle, thread, and my precious hearts.

I trimmed a piece of floral foam to fit in the vase.  I knew it would offer stability to my wobbly branch.

I stuck the branch in the vase, going through the floral foam.

I used a needle and thread to make ornament hangers on all 20 hearts.

 I pulled the thread so that the knot was actually hidden in the top of each heart. (not pictured)

Almost done!

I just added a ribbon.  I love it!

I highly recommend that you hop on over to Laura Malek's shop: feltjar.etsy.com and see all her lovelies.  She was wonderful to order from.  Even with our snowstorm (she lives only about an hour from me and was snowed in as well), I got these right away. She even included a hand written thank you note. 

I'm in the middle of two more projects today.  Busy busy!  The snow is melting and the skies are blue.  The kids aren't napping (what's new?) Hopefully, I'll get them done to share with you!

A Gorgeous Valentine's Day Wreath

I'm going to share some posts from last year that have wonderful Valentine's Day ideas. Here's the first one! 

I FINISHED IT!

Isn't it beautiful?

The pictures do not do it justice.  The felt is a great velvety red.

I've temporarily placed it on my mantle since it's too cold to go outside and put it on my door.

I LOVE my new heart wreath!

Do you want to make one?  Well, this was a copy craft. Let me give you a few pointers. There are more than 300 three inch circles on my wreath.  It took over a yard and a half of felt.  The original crafter said she used 3/4 of a yard.  I'm thinking I put my circles a little too close together.  Oh well.  I think it looks fantastic and the blisters on my scissor hand will heal soon.  Just kidding.  I didn't get blisters but that did make for a lot of cutting.  I did double up the felt so I was cutting two at a time.  That helps! Also, love all my friends and my Mommy but I won't be making anymore of these this year.  As glad as I am that I made it, I'm circled out.  This is not a mass crafting recommended project.

Here's the link to the creator: http://www.theidearoom.net/2010/01/felt-heart-wreath.html Kudos to her for creating such an amazingly beautiful wreath.

We're still facing freezing conditions and icy roads.  GraciAnn solved the dilemma of how to warm up after playing in the snow....

A BUBBLE BATH!

I'm so glad Jill shared her "recipe" for bath paints.  My girls adore bathtime and paint. We'll be making those soon.  So, since we're iced in again tomorrow, I'll be working on another project in the works, "THE PLAYROOM!"  Yikes!  Wish me luck!

A Baby Gift-A Baby Food Jar Cake-A Tutorial

I have made many diaper cakes for baby showers I've hosted and attended.  They are great decorations, are fun, and better yet, very practical!  Our friend was having her second baby. Because she was having another boy, we decided to throw her a themed shower. A "food" theme was selected. So, we focused on all things to do with feeding babies.

I wanted to make her a special gift.  She is a very special friend. I decided to make a baby food jar cake.

I needed a round cake board. You can buy these anywhere. I picked these up at WalMart in a 5 pack.  I bought 24 jars of baby food. I had a glue gun, a plastic wrapping bag, and ribbon.

I arranged 14 jars into a circle and hot glued them to the cake board.

I glued 7 more jars on top of the first layer.

Here's a top down view.

I glued the final three jars on top of the second layer.

Another view from the top.

Here's the plastic wrapping bag I used.  I put the entire baby jar cake in it.

I then tied a big blue bow on it and added a pack of spoons for a little extra touch.

This was a fun twist on a traditional item.  The mother to be loved it!

Birthday Treat Buckets-A Practical Alternative to "Goody Bags"

One of the fourteen treat buckets I made.

My baby did it.  She graduated out of the baby stage.  She's an official two year old! It's amazing how fast two years goes by.

Mariella

We had her birthday party at a wonderful place in Gainesville, GA called: INK. http://www.inkfun.org/ If you live nearby or are ever in the area, this is a wonderful place to bring kids!  Anyway, since her party was at a museum, of sorts, we didn't have a real "theme".  Mariella LOVES Minnie Mouse.  I think it's because we got her this incredibly soft, stuffed Minnie, when we went to Disney last time.

I wanted to cut vinyl Minnies and Mickeys on my Silhouette for the buckets, but that bad thing called, "Lack of Time", took control and I didn't get that done.  I also wanted to put hand crafted Minnie bows in the girls' buckets, but, well you know my excuse! (I will share pictures of those bows soon!)  So, I'll tell you what I did do.

Since she adores Minnie, I got her a Minnie themed birthday cake.  I tried to tie the treat buckets(I got at The Dollar Tree) into the theme.  Using my Silhouette, I cut the guests' names with the Disney font, Waltograph (it can be downloaded for free!). I used pink vinyl for the girls and blue for the boys.  I gave family treat buckets, as opposed to individual ones, simply because I ran out of time.

Each bucket had homemade Playdough in it. http://www.oursevendwarfs.com/2011/01/easy-safe-not-as-messy-homemade.html I made five different colors.  Since we were at a museum that didn't serve or sell food, I worried that our guests would get hungry.  So, I put popcorn, fruit snacks, and rice krispy treats in the buckets as well.  I topped each bucket with coordinating tissue paper. Although they weren't exactly what I wanted, they were cute and the buckets can be used again and again! 

I'll admit, these treat buckets were a bit time consuming but I didn't send my friends home with a lot of junky stuff for their kids.  I also didn't spend a ton of money on them. I think the guests really liked them and I was happy with how they turned out. 

This is just another example of how you can turn something blah into tada with a little vinyl and a Silhouette!

Happy 2nd Birthday, My Sweet, Sweet Mariella!

 

An Easy, Safe, Not as Messy, Homemade Playdough!

My Homemade Playdough

Face it, Playdough is crumbly and I think it stinks! Of course, I'm SUPER sensitive to smells (hence the reason I don't want to set foot (or even drive thru McDonalds).

My friend Lesli shared this wonderful Playdough recipe with me.  She got it from her daughters' school.

Play Dough
1 ¼ cup flour
¼ cup salt
1 package of Kool Aid
1 cup boiling water
1 ½ Tablespoon oil
Mix dry ingredients. Mix liquid ingredients. Pour together in bowl. Knead into ball. Keep in Ziploc.

Of course, the color of Kool Aid dictates the color of your Playdough.  The only color that's a challenge to get is yellow.  I doubled the recipe, so I used two packs of yellow KoolAid and added a pack of orange KoolAid.  It was a close yellow.

I promise, this Playdough smells great.  If little hands put some in their mouths, no worries.  It will taste EXTREMELY salty but won't hurt them.  The oil keeps the Playdough from being crumbly. It's oh so soft. It lasts for months in a Ziploc bag. The best part is for about $5 you can make enough playdough for more than twenty kids!

A Valentine's Day Craft I Created. No Copycatting Involved!-A Tutorial

I am proud.  This is by no means a perfect project and there are a few things I'd do differently, (no worries, I'll let you know what they are) but I made this without cheating off someone else's creativity.  There's hope!

I started with a white canvas, a paintbrush, white, pink, and red acrylic paint.

I squirted the white paint on the acrylic canvas...

and got some help spreading it out evenly.

I lightly dry brushed the canvas with the light pink and red paints. (If I had to do it again, I wouldn't have used pink. I decided to do the accent pieces in red so the red dry brushing alone would have probably looked better.

Here's the prepared canvas. I really like the dimension/texture or whatever you call the hint of color.

I printed words on my computer. I knew I wanted "Love is" but struggled for the last word.  I liked magical.  But, then I asked my four year old, GraciAnn.  With her big blue eyes opened wide, she said, "Love is AMAZING!"  Amazing was perfect for our sign! "Love" is in AR DECODE font at 300 pt. "Is Amazing" is Monster Papparazzi font in 100 pt. I cut the words out and positioned them on the canvas.  At the end, I didn't like the placement because it made it difficult to decorate the rest of the sign. Next time, I'll think through the entire project before making it permanent.

I took a pencil and scribbled on the back of the words to make it easily to transfer them onto the canvas.

I then traced the outline of the letters, with a sharp pencil.

If you look closely, you can see the letters on the canvas, ready to fill in.

I took a black, glossy, acrylic paint and carefully filled in the words.

Here's what it looks like all painted.

Now, for the embellishments. I  made 4 flowers out of red felt (the same felt I used on the amazing wreath) and black burlap. I also needed a needle and thread. I used 9 3" circles for each flower. Five black circles and four red circles per flower.  Between this project and the wreath project I am so over cutting circles!

For each flower, I took a black burlap circle as a base.  I folded the remaining circles in quarters and sewed them on one at a time at the pointed part of the circle.

I sewed the second one directly across from the first.

I filled in the third...

and fourth ones to complete the base.

Then, I added the red felt circles.  I folded them in quarters too.  I overlapped two of the black pieces.

I sewed the second one right across from the first.

Fill in with the third....

and fourth circles. This is what it looks like prior to being "fluffed".

Then I kind of unfolded and fluffed the circles and this was my flower.

Here's my finished piece.  I took black grosgrain ribbon and hot glued it around the edges to give it a finished look.  I also added a bow, from the same ribbon.  I was trying to balance everything out.  It wasn't easy.  I definitely should have planned ahead.  That's the benefits of copy crafting.  You learn from others' mistakes.  Oh well!  I really like how it turned out and it was another inexpensive addition to my Valentine's Day crafts!